reading and writing about why we work

September 2016

09/29/2016

In What the Best Students Do, Bain refers to a term when explaining his ideas and claims on “framing”. “A frame around a problem or question can influence how you will answer it” (Bain,80). Bain uses an experiment done by Ellen Langer and she became aware of, “framing can shape how people react to any activity”(Bain,83).”If Framing is so powerful, it means that when we mindfully pay attention to the frames that other people create for us, we can escape the tyranny of those boxes and cobble together ways of looking at the world that let us enjoy what we do”(Bain, 83). “So much of school can frame everything...Grades create extrinsic motivators that reduce intrinsic interests…Students often work for the teacher rather than for themselves” (Bain,83). Bain supports the power of framing by how students react to activities and how different situations within life, such as school can frame the way the individual thinks and views different situations. I believe that framing is powerful because I know that within my lif, different situations and activities can either change my way of thinking about the outcome and wanting to change it. For example, this semester I have run into life changing experiences and as much as I am trying not to allow it to “frame” my thinking and reactions to my everyday activities, school, work, communication with others, etc. I can agree that “framing is powerful” because I have experienced this idea first hand with the influence of experiences affecting another life situations in a positive and in a negative way. My thoughts and how I react to every situation are very powerful and do influence my choices and reactions.

In the book What The Best College Students Do, by Ken Bain, he uses Martin Seligman’s example of learned helplessness (56). Seligman describes this “in which people who have faced repeated obstacles that prevent them from succeeding still act as if they can’t help themselves even when those obstacles disappear” (56). This unrealistic sense of inability hinders a person’s potential to succeed. This destructive mindset will result in a person’s loss of interest in their own education, The term learned helplessness helped me realize my potential as a student. When I went to school as a child, every assignment was on paper. You do your homework, bring it in the next day, get credit. Today, technology is everything. I’ve learned to navigate computers for my job and things like fantasy football research and things like that but have never had too much experience with computers especially in school. I remember having a difficult time posting my assignments on blackboard. I would get extremely frustrated and I started to question my educational goals thinking I would not be able to succeed in college because I did not know how to use a computer. Reading about learned helplessness helped me understand that to become a better student I must be able to leave my comfort zone at times. I believe knowing that I’m not the only one who has felt this way, and knowing that it is just a mental block is something I know I can overcome.

Many believe they cannot be influenced by the thoughts of other. In the book What the Best College Students Do, Ken Bain uses the term negative stereotype to define how society influences people's way of thinking. He discusses how “ there is a pervasive negative social stereotype in the society in which humans live, the mere existence of that stereotype can influence their performance even if they personally reject the stereotype” (Bain,85). Stereotypes is when humans are being put into type of groups and judged. They can be judged in a positive , or in this case, in a negative way. Stereotypes can destroy someone's self esteem by them just knowing they have something in common with the group. Judgement based on ethnicity, gender, and preferences can shape society around lies. Researcher Kenneth Clark had analyzed that when “you accept the stereotype “about your kind”..the negative image of your group will obviously influence your performance” (Bain,85). People feel defeated and that tasks cannot be completed by them. No one can see or recognize what a stereotype can do “Because societies have so many positive and negative stereotypes…” (Bain,86). These negative vibes disturb the thinking process and provoke the brain to fail. During middle school I had someone tell me that “short people have no confidence”. I think about the stereotype now and it sounds so naive, but back then, I was embarrassed of myself. I was so short i did not want to be around others because the first thing school colleagues would say was, "omg!, you are so short, but adorable". I felt like i was not being taken serious and was just something to stare at. I really thought the worst of me because I was short. Little by little , I learned I was more than short. the stereotype affected me less and accepted who I was. I still tend to compare myself to others in the ‘group’ when in reality, we are different people. “You can create ways that no one else can” (88). My brain accepted my flaws and allowed me to succeed. I was accepting that I was different from most and was unique in my own way. Who care what others think.

The author, Ken Bain, uses the term creativity extensively throughout his book, What the Best College Students Do. Bain wants his readers to know that they don’t have to feel manipulated by society, but that they can do whatever brings them pleasure and allows them to express themselves and use their skills to achieve success. “They became excited about discovering great works of the mind and about the ways those works challenge their own thinking and creative efforts” (Bain 82). Creativity has a different definition for everyone. It can be applied artistically, technologically, verbally, etc. Bain also mentions, “You can create in ways no one else can” (Bain 88). It is hard for students to be able to break out into creativity because creativity is not usually part of the schooling system. Students lose their identity because of this. I , for example, have never enjoyed school. Everything felt too basic, and not in the sense that it was easy, but in the sense that there was hardly any critical thinking involved. I’ve always loved science because of the freedom it gives people to ask questions and to be creative in finding solutions or cures to something, possibly even come up with a revolutionary discovery, etc. This is why I want to become a dental hygienist so that I can be a part of a team in which creativity will be used in researching new ways to treat patients or researching the newest technology.

A term relevant to my life right now is intrinsic motivation (Bain 44). Bain defines intrinsic motivation as “important, intriguing, or just beautiful” forces that drive us to be the best college students we can be (Bain 44). As students we must understand ourselves and our interests in order to find our own internal reasons to be the best students we can be. We do this by maintaining our “curiosity”, learning to “explore”, and finding “links among [our] interests”. In my life right now I am starting to question what motivates me. Up until now I have been taking college courses that are required and I knew I could do well in. I was motivated by what was expected of me, good grades. Instead, I need to think about what I like, find interesting, intriguing, and beautiful. Something that encompasses all those qualities, for me, are humans and the way humans think. I would love to understand more about this subject. I have a newfound curiosity to explore the human mind and I can't wait to make it my focus and motivation to keep on learning.

09/28/2016

“ A dancer might think like a good mathematician to expand the art of moving bodies…”(81)

“ You can create in ways that no one else can…”(88)

I believe that Bain uses the word creative to make people understand that they can be who they are, that everybody is unique. This term plays in my life a lot because I’m building my car and I need to be creative on what parts I put on. Everybody is creative at something they love doing. I believe being creative is very helpful in life because it makes everybody different. If we were all the same then no one would stand out

In the book What The Best College Students Do, Ken Bain mentions the term curiosity very often. I believe he mentions this term quite often because curiosity is what drives all of us into deeper thoughts in our own thoughts in everything that we do. “Sometimes that curiosity so essential to intrinsic motivation, deep learning and adaptive expertise”(63). Curiosity could lead into different trails of deep thoughts, but what matters in the end is finding the ‘why’ in everything. Bain mentioning intrinsic motivation, deep learning, and adaptive expertise, these were all lead up because of curiosity. There are different types of learners therefore curiosity isn’t found in. Strategic learners were “primarily intend simply to make good grades”(36) and surface learners “looked for facts and words they could memorize” but that doesn’t necessarily mean surface learners would receive a good grade. Both of these types of learners didn’t use that curiosity to motivate them to dig deeper in their own thoughts on the reasoning of what they learned or how to relate it in a way they could understand. Relating to curiosity, at a young age, I’ve always wanted to become a flight attendant because my curiosity was to learn about new places and it’s cultures or its significance. Being born and raised on a island of Hawai’i, rarely no one knew anything about the ‘mainland’ and I was one of the few that wanted to learn more because I was curious of what the rest of the world looks like.

While, reading a section in the book called What The Best College Students Do I found a term that struck my interest and curiosity. Ken Bain starts off by talking about mental models, how we have to understand how our brain works and how it constructs reality. Once we figure that out only then can we begin to jump outside our confinements and look at our world around us from different viewpoints. We all have a solution to a problem that we have dealt with, but put us in a situation we have never been in and see how we react. “We call those moments of new insight “Expectation Failures”(68). The brain expects a certain outcome (because of a model it has built), yet something else happens”(68). Because this happens we have to stop and rethink about our understandings of situations. “Life is full of surprises,” Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests, “if we only notice them” (68). We do everything in our power to evade challenging our thinking, but it doesn’t always work out the way we hope. I think that Bain says it perfectly when he states, “To have an influence, the expectation failure often has to be shocking and bold. And, of course, we have to care when our models don’t work” (68). I never really thought about this before, but now that I have read this book I think differently. I can relate to this term because I feel like I do my best to study for an exam or test. Afterwards, when I see my grade and its not what I expected, I end up disappointed in myself. I have always set a goal for myself when it comes to the courses I take, but by the midway point I doubt myself in my choices that I have made.

In the book What the Best College Students Do Ken Bain talks about the different styles of learning. The one type of learn, the type of learning that does the best is the “deep learner”(36). The reason why the “Deep learner” does the best is because they learn to understand. The deep learner is somebody “who just loved to learn for its own sake” (40). Deep learns don’t just memorize words to ace the test they actually try to figure out what is going on in their class. They try to understand the big picture. They don’t worry so much about their grades and more about understanding the material because of this they end up doing well in school anyways. In high school, I was not a deep learner. I did what I had to get good grades but when I was in school in Utah I became a deep learner. In Utah I studied computer science something at the time I was very curious about. Whenever I did not understand how a line of code worked I made sure I would figure it out. The way I looked at it was that if I understood how that line of code worked. If a serious bug came along I would know if that line of code was causing the problem or not. If I did not understand how that line of code worked then I would never know if line of code was causing the bug or not.

Bain introduces the idea of metacognition early on. Bain calls metacognaters “highly productive and creative individuals think[ing] about their own thinking while they are thinking”(24). Google, the average person's dictionary calls metacognition the “awareness and understanding of one’s own thought process." This definition appeals to me. We need to know who we are in order to know what we want.

Bain hopes to lead us to self-realization. I find this process very relevant to my life. While a majority of my closest friends decided to get away from their parents and party (aka going away to college), I have decided to remain in Carlsbad at a community college. During my time at Mira Costa, I've spent a lot of time by my lonesome. I have been alone with my thoughts and opinions more than ever before. In this time, I have learned about the roots of my opinions and how my brain works. I know who I am and I'm confident. Being able to name this process is helpful. Now that I know what I'm going through and I'm not alone, I can appreciate this alone time and use it to know myself better.